


it's been killing me all this time

by sunbean72



Category: Iron Man - Fandom, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hallucinations, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, Post CA:CW, Precious Peter Parker, Sadness, Sorrow, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Uncalled For, angsty, i hurt my feelings, my heck, no one asked, tear - Freeform, unnessary, why did I write this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-18 15:07:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13684164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunbean72/pseuds/sunbean72
Summary: Tony Stark is working in the lab when Peter drops by for a visit. Things might not be as they appear





	it's been killing me all this time

For once, it was a good dream.

When he woke up, then, it was a moment before the sadness came, the disappointment, the grief, the overwhelming sense of loss. Almost, the nightmare would have been better because despite the pain and fear nightmares inflicted always came the relief, the knowledge it wasn't real. This wasn't real. It never would be. It broke his heart.

They were having shawarma. He'd taken off his armor, facing a chaotic god bent on earth's destruction wearing only his casual clothes. Then he'd donned his armor and faced nuclear annihilation and oblivion in the form of an alien army. Then he was with the team, and Rhodey was there, and Pepper picked up her phone and Tony kept his own phone on speaker and set her next to the chips because she didn't want to hang up, didn't want to disconnect. They had fought and won, together. A dream. 

Had he been sleeping? He wasn't sure. Was it a memory? Had he forgotten until just now? No. It wasn't real. It never was. It wasn't a dream, exactly, it was ineffable, it lacked definition. He was just thinking. 

"JARVIS, raise the temperature three degrees, it's getting cold in here."

"Yes, sir," JARVIS agreed; he seemed in a good mood today. Tony smiled to himself as DUM-E responded to their conversation with an inquiring beep. 

"What's on our to-do list today?"

"You're fixing the broken arc reactor," JARVIS reminded him politely.

"That's right. Where were we on that?"

"I'm afraid you've been unsuccessful so far, but sir, you have a visitor. Mr. Parker is requesting access to the lab."

"Oh." Something wasn't right about that. Something was off. "Let him in," he said amiably. The pounding bass of the rock music he had blaring as background noise faded then returned, the steady sound of it permeating the lab.

"Hey Mr. Stark!" The young crime-fighter enthused. "How's it going?"

"Good, kid, all good. What are you up to?"

"Just in the neighborhood, Mr. Stark," he replied with a grin. "Thought I'd stop by and say hello, but not for long. I gotta get to the airport."

"You don't drive?" Tony said. "What's the... where...?" He didn't want Peter going to the airport. Something he couldn't remember right. He remembered Peter lying on the ground, not moving. "No, Peter, we can get Happy to drive, okay? Safer that way."

"Thanks Mr. Stark, but I'll be fine I promise. What's this? Can I look?" He gestured at the arc reactor on Tony's workspace.

"It's the arc reactor for the suit. Something's wrong with it." He frowned. "I'm not sure what."

"I thought that you had a lot of these for all your suits?" He turned it over in his hands.

"I need that one to work," Tony said absently, taking it from Peter and inspecting it again. "It looks like it might have been damaged here."

"Show me how it works?"

"JARVIS pull up the specs," Tony said, raising a skeptical eyebrow at Peter. He was a bright kid. He might be interested in the reactor even if some of the physics of it hadn't been explained to him yet. He was bright. Bright. Tony squeezed his eyes shut; though the arc reactor was broken, it's flickering light was giving him a headache. "Come here, kid. See this? This is where electrons project outward from the inner core. Then _this_ pushes gamma rays from the outer ring here. That makes--"

"An electrostatic potential?"

"Right!"

"That's cool!"

"It is," Tony agreed with a smile. "But it's not working. Something is wrong with it."

"You'll need tools to fix it. It looks damaged."

"Thanks for the tip, kid," Tony replied dryly. "I can't find the right tools." He shivered convulsively. "Are you cold?"

"No, I'm fine."

"JARVIS, increase temperature three degrees."

Peter was carefully examining the arc reactor. "I think... you're time is running out."

Tony looked up from the holographic projection of the arc reactor, confusion on his face."What's that? What do you mean, kid, we have all the time in the world. My schedule is clear today."

"No," Peter said, his voice taking on urgency, speaking with slow emphasis. "No, listen. Your time. Is running out. You're dying."

Tony frowned, his brow furrowing. "What?" Peter, the lab, they all looked strange, and he glanced over at an iron man armor he'd been working on. It was laying on the ground, battered as if it had been hit by a tank, pieces of it clearly damaged. The cold concrete floor of the lab was covered with a thin layer of snow and frost. Tony felt his heart pounding in his chest, throbbing in his ears. The sound of the rock music slowly melted into a different sound; the unrelenting, unceasing, constant sound of the Siberian wind.

"What?" He gasped, realizing he wasn't in his lab, he was in an ancient Hydra base in Siberia. Five super soldiers lay dead in their icy chambers around him, the broken Mark 46 collapsed in a heap where he'd ejected from it earlier. A few feet away, James Barnes' mechanical arm and Steve Roger's vibranium shield lay carelessly by the TV where he'd watched his parents die. Peter walked over casually and kicked at the relics interestedly.

"You got them pretty good," he acknowledged, sounding impressed. Then he walked closer to Tony, staring hard at his face. "He got you pretty good, too."

Stunned and confused, reeling from shock, Tony slowly reached up and touched his tender face-- his fingertip, numb and yet still somehow burning and painful, came away with blood. His chest hurt with each breath and he looked down, pulling up the black shirt of the under armor, finding a red and purple bruise blooming across his heart where the shield had come down. Peter nodded, pursing his lips and looking concerned. "And when Steve threw you down, you hit your head on the concrete. He's strong!" He acknowledged. "Gave you a concussion even through the armor. You need to get help, but I'm afraid it's just you and me. It won't be the concussion that kills you, though. The cold will kill you first," he pointed out, as if offering a consolation. 

"They'll come for me," he said numbly. The cold, the pain, the worse beating of his life (and that was saying something) all seem to hit him at once and he collapsed to his knees, barely managing to catch himself from falling flat on his face. Peter quirked his mouth and shook his head.

"You didn't tell anyone where you were going. 'Alone and as a friend,' remember? No one knows you're here. You got to fix that reactor and call for help, the suit's in no shape to fly. Come on, Tony. Come on, Iron Man. You didn't survive all that--" he waved a dismissive hand-- _shrapnel, cutting through his chest like tissue paper; Stane's betrayal and subsequent attacks; palladium poisoning; Vanko's wrath; Loki; the alien monsters he allowed to swallow him whole and spit him out; the wormhole; the nuke; his home exploding around him; the Mandarin; Ultron; the fall of Sokovia_ "--just to _die._ Out here. _Alone._ " He crouched down beside Tony, contemplating him.

Tony pulled from a reserve of energy that didn't exist until he called upon it. He was so weak and so tired, he didn't think he could move he just did. He was too weak to stand or crawl, he dragged his own body forward. Painstakingly, he inched toward the mechanical arm. It had a power source. It might have parts he needed to fix the reactor. "I didn't think so," Peter said with satisfaction. "I knew you could do it."

But he wasn't doing it. His fingers, numb and swollen with frostbite, couldn't hold the delicate pieces he needed to put the arc reactor back in working order. Again and again, he dropped the tiny pieces, struggled to pick them up. Peter watched him with concern, offering encouragement at times, scoffing at him when he hesitated. Finally the light flickered to life in his hands. He put it back in the battered suit and felt warm air start to pour over his injured body.

"Sir, shall I call for Miss Potts?" JARVIS asked. His lab, the one in Malibu. The one before it was destroyed, before he lost U and all of everything he'd built. He was safe here. He could rest. He was so tired. He just wanted to rest for a few minutes.

Peter shook his head disapprovingly.

"I'm fine, just give me a minute," Tony murmured, struggling to keep his eyes open.

"You're dying," Peter said with reproach. 

"No I'm not!" Tony protested. "In fact I'm too hot! I'm burning up!"

"Then why can I see your breath?" Peter demanded sharply. Tony looked down; the iron man armor was still ten feet away, as lifeless and cold as the dead soldiers around them.

"I saw the light," Tony said, confused, hesitant. "I saw the reactor's light."

"It's the moon," Peter said gently, looking upward. A tear in the ceiling, metal and concrete and cold and stars and the moon, shining down. "The storm passed. You're not hot, your freezing to death. The warmth is the final symptom of hypothermia. The lab, me, it's a hallucination. No one is coming!"

The arm. It had its own power source. He needed it, he needed it to jumpstart the arc reactor, like it was a car battery. "That's right," Peter said. "Keep it moving. You know how this works. You stop, you die."

"I thought you were a teenager, not a drill sergeant," Tony said, turning onto his back to try and rest a moment. He was so weak, so tired. He pulled himself forward to the arm, and with shaking, unbearably painful fingers, he did it. The arc reactor burned to life, casting it's brightness into the cold, dark room, casting deep, stark shadows. 

"Come on!" Peter urged. "You got this! Don't give up this close!"

His fingers felt as if every touch were electrified, a mottled and discolored purple-blue from the cold. He was shivering so badly he couldn't keep his hands steady, but he kept at it, and finally the arc reactor connected to the suit. It came to life, opening up. He crawled into it, cutting himself in a couple of places on the exposed edges of metal. The armor wrapped him up, and cool air, but warmer than Siberia's cold and deadly wind, began to circulate, sending him into excruciating pain. Tears formed in his eyes and froze on his face. Slowly the suit would warm him up and save his life, give him _time._

His faceplate and helmet had been destroyed; he had no way to verbally communicate with Friday. But after a few moments, he saw a green light flickering urgently on his left wrist, a sign that the homing beacon had been activated. There were contingencies. Someone would be coming for him, now. Above him, the moon shone down, oblivious to his struggle.

Peter sat down beside him. "It's nice," he said. "The moon. It's quiet here. No noise, no people." He hesitated. "You can rest now."

"Peter," Tony mumbled through lips cracked and bleeding from the cold. "Why you? Why are you here?"

Peter looked thoughtful. "I guess... I'm what hope you have left. For the future." 

"I don't feel much hope right now," Tony responded, his voice as faint as the whisp of condensation his breath made.

Peter sighed, sadness crossing his face. "You can feel hope again, Mr. Stark. Just hold on a little longer."

Tony finally closed his eyes. "Will you stay with me?"

"Of course."

The next thing Tony Stark was conscious of was gentle and caring hands helping him to a place he knew he'd be warm and safe. He opened his eyes once, though it was a huge effort, to look around. Peter was gone.

**Author's Note:**

> Dialogue and plot borrowed HEAVILY from my very favorite TV show, Person of Interest, Season 4 episode 20 Terra Incognita with the most excellent acting by some of my favorite characters GO WATCH THE SERIES IMMEDIATELY IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY it's on netflix okay?


End file.
